A newsletter for internship partner companies, friends, faculty and students

of the College of Business and Economics of Longwood

Summer 2010

Vol 1, Issue 2

Director's Message

William Baxter

Welcome to the second on-line edition of "The Real World," the quarterly newsletter of the McGaughy Internship and Professional Development Center.

During the first half of 2010, 128 students completed their internships. We're seeing a subtle shift in when students choose to intern - summer internships were down roughly by the same amount that spring internships were up. While 80% of our summer internships were in Virginia, the other 20% covered a lot of geography:

Internships are an important educational requirement for all College of Business and Economics students. They are carefully monitored and evaluated for academic credit, ensuring that intentional learning objectives are structured into the experience. In addition, each internship includes opportunities for observation, reflection, evaluation and assessment.

An internship must be at least 80 hours in duration, but may be either a part-time or full-time

experience and may be paid or non-paid. Theflexibility of these requirements helps balance the needs of both the student and the internship company.

Retail Marketing Expo

Dr. John Gaskins, Retail Learning Center Director, Bill Baxter, Director of the McGaughy Center, and Nancy Postans, Internship Coordinator for the McGaughy Center in the College of Business and Economics at Longwood University hosted a booth at the recent Retail Marketing Expo.

What's New

The McGaughy Center, in conjunction with our MBA practicum projects, the Longwood Small Business Development Center, the Hampden Sydney College Career Development Office, the Farmville Regional Economic Development Authority, the Farmville Chamber of Commerce and other groups, is working to envision a coordinated marketing plan for the Farmville region. Under the Chamber of Commerce's leadership, this group hopes to promote a more vital Farmville downtown shopping district. The outcome of this project will provide more local internship opportunities for our students, enabling more students to complete their internships during the academic year. We'll keep all of our supporters informed as this exciting project rolls out.

Northrop Grumman Corporation (NGC) was the featured company at a recent McGaughy Center internship seminar.NGC is a leading global security company with over 120,000 employees working in five business sectors: aerospace, electronics, information systems, shipbuilding, and technical services to government and commercial customers worldwide.

Shauna Holcomb, a NGC Talent Acquisition Specialist involved in University Relations and Recruiting, was one of the speakers and related, "NGC offers great internship opportunities for college students with an overall GPA of 3.5 who are in their junior or senior years. Most of our internships are of a technical nature but we do have non-technical opportunities for majors in fields such as Accounting, Computer Information Management Systems, Finance, Management and Marketing. NGC headquarters is moving from Los Angeles to Virginia in the summer of 2011 and this will provide numerous internship, as well as job, opportunities." NGC has provided outstanding internships to many CBE students that have led to employment opportunities.

Internship Seminar - Company Opportunities

Students begin the internship process with a compulsory internship seminar where they learn the details and requirements of the program. During each seminar, they are also introduced to a featured company whose representative(s) elaborate on internship opportunities.

Featured company benefits: There are four internship seminars during the academic year -- two in the spring and two in the fall. We encourage featured companies to present their unique internship opportunities at the seminars. We further enrich their Longwood experience with a full, productive and involved day on campus where they:

are given 15-20 minutes in multiple classes to tell their story to CBE students.

are given 20 minutes (+/-) to tell their story at the beginning of the afternoon internship seminar. Typically there is a lot of interaction with students at these seminars and company representatives usually leave campus with a number of qualified resumes, both for internships and for actual jobs.

go on a student conducted tour of Longwood's Farmville campus (another chance to interact with students).

attend an informal lunch with the business school's student leadership and selected faculty.

If your company offers internships and would like to participate in one of our seminars, we'd like to hear from you. Please contact Nancy Postans at postansnc@longwood.edu.

From Intern to Employee - Brandy Sink

Brandy Sink

Walgreens Management Training Internship

My responsibilities as a Business Management Intern (BMI) with Walgreens consisted of learning how to manage a multi-million dollar retail store in three months. I learned how to do basic management functions such as delegating tasks, thinking creatively of how to sell merchandise, handling large amounts of money, processing refunds/exchanges, and providing excellent customer service.

Walgreens is a drug retail company currently operating over 6,000 stores. This is a big achievement from the first Walgreens that opened in 1906 where the malt milkshake originated. Depending on location, stores are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week to better serve our customers.

I was very fortunate to participate in an organized and structured internship with Walgreens. Longwood's College of Business prepared me for many situations that occurred at work. The business classes taught me how to act professionally and think creatively to solve problems. Upon the completion of my internship, I stayed an extra two weeks to help open a new store and was offered an Assistant Manager's position which I gladly accepted! During my senior year, I continued to work while completing my classes and received a promotion to Executive Assistant Manager before graduation.

Internship Success - Brant Jones

Brant Jones

The Impak Marketing Experience

During my internship with Impak Marketing, I shadowed and worked with the financial controller/collector. Impak Marketing is a direct mail advertiser which mails their magazine to over 30,000 households on a monthly basis. Through this internship, I learned what generates revenue and how revenue is dispersed. The thing that made this internship a successful and worthwhile experience was the friendly and relaxed work environment. Another advantage was the abundance of information given to me that helped me become more knowledgeable about the company.

This internship exposed me to a variety of positions. Whether it was working with collections, payroll, or going on a sales call with one of the sales reps, these were all great learning experiences. I sat in on a variety of meetings that dealt with sales, tax, and financial issues. It was beneficial to be exposed to these and see how certain decisions are made.

Many of my Longwood courses helped prepare me for this internship. My accounting and finance courses had the most impact. My marketing class also provided me with important information that was used. During the internship, I was able to relate real life tasks directly to what was learned in the classroom. This was a great experience and I came away with much more than expected.

Our newsletter is designed to keep our internship partner companies, friends, faculty and students informed of the latest happenings in the McGaughy Internship & Professional Development Center. Please contact me if you have any questions or comments.